Up at 4 am; husband walked with me to the coach station. Lots of hugs. I cried as the coach pulled away. This is the first time I have gone away from him (ie he’s been away and I’d stayed at home). It struck me this morning that I won’t be around to help him with anything IT or back him up if there’s any difficulties. This could be really good for both of us: an enforced letting go and independence. I have to have faith that he’s going to be ok. I love him so much, especially that he has been so supportive of me even though he is so grief-struck that my balls are going to their fiery end!

My flight leaves the UK at 13:00 GMT, and arrives in San Diego at 16:10 local time (00:10 GMT). I’ve heard from the clinic’s drivers that I’ll be picked up at the airport and taken across the border (a tiny hop) into Tijuana. I should be at the recovery centre in time for tea!

Saturday and Sunday are free days. Marla (the recovery centre manager) has offered me a tour of Tijuana on one of the free days. I’m thinking Saturday might be best. Sunday I want to go and see the ocean. I don’t know whether I’ll ever have the opportunity to see the Pacific again … and a sort of family tradition: I want to go for a paddle! I am also hoping for a cup of tea and a piece of cake somewhere.

Monday I have my pre-op assessment. Patients over 40 need to have them. Younger patients can arrange to have bloods taken by their own GP and email them across. I’m kind of looking forward to the pre-op. I may also see about having a massage on Monday as well.

Tuesday is the operation. I don’t know what time it is, or what any of the arrangements are for it yet, but I have already developed trust in Marla that it will just all be sorted for me.

The rest of the week I am in recovery. I don’t know much about that yet either! I shall let y’all know when I do!

When all this is over, I’m going to create a web page describing everything that I’ve learnt about the process, aiming to answer the questions that I got answered by the kind people who went before me, or that I wish I’d asked before I went.

If you have any questions that you’d like to know the answer to that can really only be found out by somebody on the ground in Mexico, you can leave a reply on this post, or anywhere on this blog, and I’ll try to answer or find out the answer, if I don’t know!

… but maybe somebody else knows the answer to this one! I would like to know the tipping customs are in Mexico. In Britain we only tip good service, as waiting staff get paid, but I don’t want to assume that overseas – tipping is always stressful for British folk when we travel.